


Tied In Ribbon

by Nautilusopus



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Hair Braiding, Prosthetic Arm, adjusting to civilian life, and so's half of ac/c honestly, askbox prompts, dirge and crisis core non-canon, non-beta'd, postgame, pre-AC/C
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 20:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13982514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautilusopus/pseuds/Nautilusopus
Summary: After his gun arm is destroyed during Meteorfall, Barret breaks in his new prosthesis.





	Tied In Ribbon

**Author's Note:**

> I'll come up with a better title later, I swear. 
> 
> Limbostratus sent in this one! http://nautilusopus.tumblr.com/post/167492025616/are-you-still-accepting-prompts-barret-learning
> 
> This is sort of an early birthday present for her. Happy birthday, I guess! Here's something I barfed up in like three hours. I AM A GOOD FRIEND.
> 
> Anyway, here's something to tide you guys over for a little while until The Number I updates (soon).

Removing the first set of implants had hurt like hell. They were old and worn down, and even if they weren't he'd need a lot nicer ones for what they had planned. There weren't enough, either. He'd need to have about four more put in if he wanted proper articulation with them. That meant a lot of surgery, and that meant keeping Marlene out of the room, because he didn't know what to expect from the process.

Instead, Barret had Reeve talk him through it, and leaving Marlene out of the process was probably a good call, because he'd spend most of it bellowing and swearing at nothing in particular every time the anesthetic they'd given him proved itself worthless. She probably heard enough from him as it was. Or Yuffie. Damn girl never did watch her mouth around his daughter. 

The second procedure, he allowed Marlene to watch. She wasn't permitted to see much in case she got in the way of the surgeon, but she seemed fascinated by the whole thing, watching each set of minute circuitry disappear from the tray one at a time. 

The second time, he managed to keep his mouth shut. This whole thing was for her benefit, after all. His previous prosthesis had been crushed when the Highwind had crashed, and its replacement had to be something that better suited the times than a gun. A gun couldn't make sandwiches or unscrew the lids off jars that were too big for a very determined four-and-three-quarters year-old to wrap their own hands around. 

Physical therapy took longer than Barret wanted it to. Reeve told him it was apparently taking less time than it did with most people -- he'd had plenty of practice with his gatling gun. An arm was still a different experience, and it had been nearly five years since he'd been able to work with two at once. He'd adapted well enough with one arm -- now he'd have to re-learn how to do everything with two. 

He'd gotten a few tips from Vincent, who'd had his prosthetic hand for three decades and tuned it up himself. On his better days, Vincent was a chore to talk to regarding just about anything -- really it was no wonder him and Nanaki got on like a house on fire, with Nanaki content to endlessly run his mouth and Vincent apparently listening to just about all of it. But this time there wasn't much unnecessary metaphor he could work into the conversation when the subject was so straightforward, and he still made more sense than Reeve, who, for all the generosity he'd offered building Barret's arm in the first place, didn't seem to know how to explain anything to anyone that didn't already know what he was talking about. Engineers. 

Vincent didn't have as much to say, but what he did was a lot more helpful. His model was significantly older, obviously. One had to watch for things getting caught in the joints. Hair, usually. Vincent took his off when he slept, while Barret had been assured there wasn't any need to remove it near that frequently. 

"I am surprised you've gone to these lengths," said Vincent at one point. 

Barret shot him a look. "You think I wouldn't bother?"

"Yes," said Vincent, as though this were obvious. Barret rolled his eyes. "After committing yourself so fully to the cause, I would not have expected you to abandon it just as quickly."

"What 'cause'?" said Barret flatly. "I think I'm just about done here. Hand me my damn therapy band and try not to say nothin' else stupid for a while."

His last scheduled physical therapy session concluded, and soon enough Barret was on an airship out of the Midgar edge survivor camp back to Corel. Next to him, Marlene fidgeted on the bench until she eventually conked out, using his leg as a pillow. He ran his fingers through her hair. It was getting a bit long already. He'd have to have it cut soon enough, but he knew she'd hate that. He'd need to do something. Before, she'd been determined to have hers as long as Tifa's, but when Tifa had cut her own hair short Marlene had nearly burst into tears, utterly scandalised. Still, maybe there was a workaround. 

The first thing Marlene did upon getting back to their makeshift home (which was at long last finally livable, or at least more livable than the survivor camp was right now) was make a beeline to her bedroom to begin to unpack. "Everything has to be in order," she said. "Or it'll get messy." 

Marlene's idea of "in order" involved everything in a pile on her bed, with the pile itself having a very particular construction. He'd make her clean it up later, but for now they both needed a break. 

Cooking dinner had proved a unique challenge. He'd gotten used to doing things one-handed, and was about halfway into the process before remembering there was an entirely new arm he'd been leaving dangling at his side the whole time. What was it that he used to do with the other one when he was cooking? Hold the pan still while he stirred, maybe. The rest would come later. Right now, "carry two bowls a lot more easily" was the one he was getting the most use out of. 

Marlene's hair kept dragging into her stew the entire time she was eating, and by the end of it she was a sticky, stew-covered mess. This would need fixing in the immediate future. 

"Get yourself in the bath," he said to her after she was done. "You're a mess."

"I can just lick it off!" she objected, inserting a bit of hair into her mouth. Barret grunted in frustration. She'd been spending way too much time around Cloud. 

"This is a civilised household and you'll be doin' no such thing," said Barret. "Go take a bath."

As Marlene sulked her way down the hall, he made a detour into her room and dug through her pile for her hair supplies. He found a brush, but couldn't successfully locate any of the hair ties he had gotten her. Had she lost them already? In the end he just took a spare piece of ribbon from her "craft box". 

Marlene was waiting on his bed with a colouring book by the time he finished washing their dishes. It probably shouldn't have taken him quite that long, but he was still wary about bringing water anywhere near his new limb, and just did the whole thing one-handed. Reeve said it was waterproof, but he trusted Reeve about as far as he could throw him. Which might actually be a decent amount, come to think about it, so less than that. 

"What's the ribbon for?" she asked as soon as she spotted it. 

He sat down behind her and began to brush out her hair. "Couldn't find none of your ties. You gotta stop losing those. We might not be able to get more right now." A lot of factories were out of commission right now. He wasn't sure how to explain the concept of scarcity to a preschooler. 

"You just let me know if I'm pulling too hard, alright?" he said. 

"Alright." She went back to drawing, leaving Barret to attend to her scalp. 

Combing was the easy part, he found out. Brush with his dominant hand (which was now the left), guide with the other. Once or twice she spoke up when he found himself yanking, but for the most part was intently focused on colouring in a moogle bright blue. 

Now for the difficult part. He carefully swept her hair back away from her face and divided it into three sections. He couldn't move very fast in the event that her hair got tangled in the joints of his new hand. It was all about slow, steady movement. Marlene reached her hand up automatically to hold the ribbon while he gathered it with his one hand, but Barret shook his head. 

"Not today, baby girl. It's gettin' too long for that."

Marlene's face fell, and she immediately pulled away to look for scissors, giving him a questioning look when all he appeared to have was the ribbon. 

"I'm gonna need you to sit still," said Barret. "I ain't ever done this before."

She went back to colouring, still suspicious, while he re-divided her hair and carefully began to weave it into a plait. It took some doing -- there were a whole five extra digits he had to coordinate the movements from that he hadn't had to bother in years, and moving a hand was a lot different than moving a gun. 

Marlene let out a yelp of discomfort and turned back around to make sure he wasn't cutting her hair. She reached back and felt to make sure it was still there, and blinked in surprise. 

"You're braiding it?"

Barret nodded. "I want it out of your face. It's a mess otherwise."

"Like Aeris!" she said with a smile, and a pang went through him. He hadn't even considered it. 

"...Yeah, I guess so."

"Hold on, then," she said, and slipped off the bed and ran back to her room, still holding her hair in place. She came back with a scrap of pink ribbon that Barret suspected but couldn't prove she'd taken from Tifa's bedspread while visiting. If anyone couldn't be trusted around scissors, it was Marlene. 

She sat back down in front of him and passed him back her hair, which he pinched carefully between his prosthetic fingers. It was good work they'd done on him, he'd give them that much credit. Sensation was a little muted, since nothing could press into his skin like they could on his remaining hand, but he could even feel the individual strands of hair through the metal. 

He finished braiding her hair, and actually had to enlist her help to hold the end of it while he tied the ribbon. It was finicky work and took longer than it probably should have, but when he leaned back to admire their handiwork the knot held and the plait itself was at least even enough to be presentable. 

Marlene was delighted. 

"It's a lot better this way," she said, admiring it in the bathroom mirror across the hall. "You pulled really hard sometimes, though. You shouldn't pull that hard."

Barret nodded. "I think I could work on that. Just make sure you keep it up, alright?"

It took her quite a while to settle down to bed, because she'd decided just prior that she wanted to make her own ribbons to potentially tie around the rest of her hair, which meant upending her pile all over the floor, which meant Barret had to actually pull her aside and make sure she cleaned it up before she went to bed after all. 

Still, he thought as he closed the door to Marlene's room, the bed still littered with bits of ribbon, it wasn't a bad look for her at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Barret being Marlene's dad and Marlene living with him and not Cloud due to shitty writing is my kink. 
> 
> One fic down, 39 to go...


End file.
